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But what of sorrows, illnesses and all else that inhibit the
native activity?
What of the suspension of consciousness which drugs or disease
may bring about? Could either welfare or happiness be present
under such conditions? And this is to say nothing of misery and
disgrace, which will certainly be urged against us, with
undoubtedly also those never-failing "Miseries of Priam."
"The Sage," we shall be told, "may bear such afflictions and even
take them lightly but they could never be his choice, and the
happy life must be one that would be chosen. The Sage, that is,
cannot be thought of as simply a sage soul, no count being taken
of the bodily-principle in the total of the being: he will, no
doubt, take all bravely... until the body's appeals come up
before him, and longings and loathings penetrate through the body
to the inner man. And since pleasure must be counted in towards
the happy life, how can one that, thus, knows the misery of
ill-fortune or pain be happy, however sage he be? Such a state,
of bliss self-contained, is for the Gods; men, because of the
less noble part subjoined in them, must needs seek happiness
throughout all their being and not merely in some one part; if
the one constituent be troubled, the other, answering to its
associate's distress, must perforce suffer hindrance in its own
activity. There is nothing but to cut away the body or the body's
sensitive life and so secure that self-contained unity essential
to happiness."
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